Chapter Ten
(Hiyaz! Sorry about the last chapter, it was written in such a hurry and I continually went back and forth so… I hate the way it turned out, I would go back and fix it but… who cares? This chapter will be better written (I hope!) because I am now allowed to carry on! Thank you Mr. D! He said that I should carry on because it's aiding my English skills! Yayness! *dances* Thanx to the MysticalWoodElf who reviewed Chapter 9, VERY much appreciated! It's great to see that peepz are taking an interest again! I will try and make it the length you want but it will be hard… I have shortened it a bit from the original idea but, we shall see… thanx again… bye!)
"No!"
"Go on!"
"If you don't… we will!"
"Okay, okay… I'll go tell him!"
"Want us to come?"
"No, I'll be fine!"
"Sure?"
"YES!" Hermione cried in an irritated voice as she pulled the bell's string outside the teacher's dormitory.
"Think they'll be pissed off?" Ron asked suddenly.
Only then had the thought sunk in on Harry. He looked at his watch which was showing the time at just after midnight. "Very." He nodded.
Ron looked at the tall, slim door and then at Hermione. "You're on your own now girl!" he turned to run when the door opened.
"What do you want at this hour? I swear this had better be good or I'll have all three of you suspended or expelled!" typically, Snape had answered the door… wearing a white night robe with pink spots and a frown on his face, standing over them ominously. The blue, fluffy slippers just added to the effect.
Harry, Ron and Hermione stared for a minute looking up and down, completely horrified at seeing Snape out of his usual black robes but also at seeing him wearing a night gown. It was the sort of things that would give anyone nightmares. How could he possibly think he was being threatening wearing that?
"Excuse me Professor Snape sir, but we need to talk to Professor Lupin…" Hermione said in a small voice, looking down at the ground.
"Can't it wait until the morning?" Snape snapped sleepily.
"It is morning sir…" Ron muttered.
"It's urgent…" Hermione replied.
"Life or death!" Harry added quickly.
Snape's lip curled and he looked down at the children, the frown was still fixed on his face. After a while, he turned and bellowed, "LUPIN! YOU'RE WANTED!"
As soon as he moved away the three teenagers could see into the depths of the teacher's liar, a sight rarely seen by students. Snape was walking towards the corner where Lupin was lying with his head down on the desk, papers scattered all around him. It looked as if the corner had suffered a very small hurricane.
"Tidy yourself up man!" Snape hit Lupin over the head to wake him up.
Lupin made a strange moaning noise and flapped his arms around the air where Snape was standing but he didn't open his eyes.
"Lupin, for God's sake man, wake up! Don't make me get the water jug!" Snape sighed.
"What on earth is going on down here?"
Everyone looked up at the staircase, even Lupin managed to open one eye and look up. It was McGonnagal… and she was wearing a short, slinky night dress. It really didn't suit her, especially to the eyes of the three young teens, it would've looked sexy on anyone else… She was also wearing a moss green face mask and she still had her hair up in that tight bun that many people argued if she ever did take it out, now they had evidence that she didn't.
Harry and Ron yelled.
"You're on your own now Hermione!"
"Yeah, this is when we leave you… just like you asked!"
With that, they both ran.
"What is the meaning of this Miss Granger? And at this hour?" she snapped.
"I'm sorry professor but… it's urgent that I speak to Professor Lupin… now," Hermione looked down again and played with the rug's tassel.
"What's wrong Hermione?" Lupin stretched, pages that had stuck to the side of his face fell off as he did so, leaving traces of the inked letters on him.
"Privately!" she added looking at Snape and McGonagal.
"Of course Hermione… is it really that urgent?" he looked at his watch.
"I can't sleep sir… I won't till I talk to you about this!"
Snape walked past her muttering, "Probably panicking over an exam paper as usual."
Hermione glared as he walked past, McGonagal also walked back up, leaving Hermione alone with the haggard, sleepy Lupin.
"Tell me what's bothering you Hermione. Something tells me it's not a test," he said as he pulled a chair round for her.
Hermione hesitated for a while and stared around the big, cathedral-like room with its stained glass windows and high ceiling. It had statues of various witches and wizards, tall pillars running up all four corners each with a house crest engraved onto it and the Hogwarts motto under them with the name of the house founder. It was a nice room with all eight house colours merged with such mastery that it looked so good and no one would've noticed it at all.
"Hermione? You're not going to sit there and not tell me are you? Not after seeing Snape in his night gown? It's too much of an ordeal to go through for nothing you know!"
Hermione managed a smile, it was good to smile now and Lupin made it so easy. Her face then darkened again before she began.
"You talked to Harry and Ron yesterday… about Draco…"
"Yes," Lupin was leaning in towards her as if he would hear something hidden in what she was about to say.
"Well, they told me and I didn't believe them. It was all insane! Oh God, I should've listened to them and never gone out on my own!"
Lupin could easily guess what had happened. He reached out and wiped away a tear that had escaped her eyes. "Don't go into it if you can't. All I'm concerned about is if he hurt you or not."
Hermione shook her head slightly, "He didn't get a chance to but he did try. It would've ended differently if I hadn't had my necklace, or if Fang hadn't of pushed him away from me." She reached to her neck, only to remember that Draco had thrown her necklace away. "I feel so venerable without my necklace!"
Lupin looked at the petrified girl in front of him and sighed. "He's up to something."
"I know. Harry and Ron told me all about it. But why?"
"I don't know, but we will find out in time. Voldemort's got a plan and it doesn't sound good."
"How can we stop this?"
"Depends on what the plan is."
Hermione thought for a moment. "Vampires originate in Romania. What are they doing here?"
Lupin stayed silent for a minute. "Last year, Voldemort called upon creatures of darkness to aid him in his plans. That includes creatures that don't have minds of their own, creatures like vampires, dementors, trolls and even werewolves. But I, of course, manage to control myself so I could fight it. Vampires can't because they no longer have a soul, did I teach you lot this?"
"You told us that a person loses their soul when they get bitten and they turn evil if that's what you mean."
"Did I tell you about the whole 'once bitten, twice damned' thing?"
"No." Hermione was shocked that she hadn't heard of it before.
"Well, this may not be of any importance but I can see you're interested. It means that once a person is bitten, they are damned twice. Once by means of their body being over taken by an evil force after the absence of their soul and twice by means of the actual soul. The person's soul leaves them as the person's life dissolves and is forced into a sort of darkness where they are trapped until the body is destroyed."
Hermione blinked. She could be onto something. Those voices she heard when Draco got too close, could they have been the real Draco calling to her?
"I hear voices… a voice calls to me when Draco gets too close to me. He tells me to get away and to run but also, he asks me for help. He says that he is trapped and there is no way out, that he is lost and scared. Could that be his soul?"
Lupin looked at her, deep in thought and a look of realisation soon dawned his tired face. "Voices? Draco's voice calling to you?"
"Is it?"
"It sounds like it. And if it is, we could be onto something," he said as he tapped the desk with his fingers and walked over to a wall full of books.
Hermione thought for a moment but still couldn't think of what Lupin was up to. "What?"
"It's a good thing!" Lupin smiled as he sat back down with a leather bound book that looked as if it hadn't been thumbed through for at least half a century. "You want to help Draco don't you? Set him free?"
"Yes!"
"Well, there are two ways of doing that. One way is the traditional way of destroying a vampire and that's the stake through the heart but that can be nasty if you knew the person well. Many people have failed to do this because they couldn't stand the thought of doing that to the person, it's the vampire that makes them think that so they can get away. By doing that, you are destroying the source of the evil force and therefore setting the soul free, although the person will die."
"I don't want to have to do that!"
"Of course not. The other way is rarely used because it's dangerous and usually fails, it's also because this situation only ever happens if the person escapes the vampire before the ritual is complete!"
"Sir, you're confusing me!"
"The ritual of a vampire is more than just biting and draining their blood. Once the person wakes up again, the vampire is to come back and make the half-vampire drink the blood that the attacker took from them. This makes the evil stronger and more dangerous, a complete vampire. But what I think has happened is that whoever the attacker was has forgotten about this and so Draco's soul is still strong and is trying to fight the force away… trying to save people from it!"
Hermione remained silent, she stared in astonishment that Lupin was able to tell her all of this information from a small paragraph in a book. It was logical, she had heard about it before but only in fictional stories but she never thought for a moment that it was true.
"How's that good? Can we help him?"
"Yes, it says in this book that a complex spell or potion will keep the evil at bay and let Draco regain control again. A bit like the stuff I take when it's a full moon only it's permanent, look."
Hermione looked at the book and saw a jewelled necklace. It said that the evil will remain at bay as long as the necklace is worn. It was worth a try anyway, not only will it bring Draco back to her but if Draco was really that important to Voldemort, then the plan will not go ahead and Harry will be safe.
"What can I do to help?" she asked as soon as she had read it.
"You have to talk to Draco, coax him into fighting harder so we can capture the creature and attempt the spell."
"Sorry… attempt?"
"It's a complex spell Hermione!" Lupin shook his head, "If it doesn't work then we will have to destroy him."
"It's worth a shot though… isn't it?"
"You really want Draco back don't you?"
"We've gotten close… I know that that's not the real Draco and I want him back… I don't want to lose him now. Not like this!"
Lupin stared into the girl's fierce eyes full of determination and hope. He knew what she was saying and what she was going through. He couldn't refuse her the hope of saving her friend's life. "Okay, we will try, but don't get excited. Not only may it not work, but once you do bring him back, he won't be truly alive, he's still dead Hermione. He may not be the same. When he was bitten he died, life drained out of him. Once his soul returns, he will be able to feel sadness and pain once again, live forever but still feel the agony of losing all those that he once loved… are you sure you want to bring him back to that?"
Hermione fell silent again. She hadn't thought about that.
"Talk to him. If you can talk to Draco then do that," Lupin added standing up and taking her to the door. "Get some sleep now, Harry and Ron will make sure you're safe, until you get that necklace back.
"Thank you professor… sorry about waking you up."
"It's okay; I don't sleep much now anyway," he smiled as she walked back to the common room.
*~*~*~*~*
"You go! He likes you more!"
"Me? You're the one he's always talking about!"
"Why won't you just go and tell him?"
"Why don't you?"
"We'll both go, okay?"
"After you."
"No, after you Dari, I insist!"
"What are you two idiots up to?"
Donato and Dario jumped and yelled at hearing their master's voice. They wanted to get dear Draco into trouble but what if Voldemort took his anger out on them?
"W-we have something to tell you…" Donato muttered.
"I gathered that much from your quarrelling. Spill it now!"
"It's about pretty boy Draco, he's too much of a coward to come and tell you himself, face to face," Dario stood up straight, his messed up white hair tipped with black falling over his dull black eyes.
"Really? And why are you two here to tell me?"
"Because we thought you ought to know, it is very damaging to the plan after all!" Donato smirked.
"What has he done now?" Voldemort was getting impatient and now very angry.
"He let the filthy little mudblood escape and now she knows about him. If she knows then Potter will be out of our reach because there is no one to get him on his own. They will be together all the time now keeping an eye out for Malfoy!" Donato told him with an evil grin that showed his sharp teeth maliciously.
Voldemort was silent for a while. The two vampires looked at each other and Dario shrugged and motioned to the doorway.
"We'll be going now…" Donato muttered as they both crept backwards to the door.
"Hold it!"
They both froze.
"Bring him to me."
"Malfoy or Potter?" both boys asked.
Voldemort thought about it himself for a few moments, after a few seconds, his pale face twisted into a cruel grin that spelt menace.
"Both of them!"
*~*~*~*~*
"You mean… you can help me?" Draco smiled slightly but tried not to gather his hopes up.
Hermione saw the trace of hope and joy in his eyes as they stood hand in hand in the darkness. Hermione had willed with all she had that she could talk to Draco in her dream and tell him. It had worked but now she felt saddened. As she gazed into the joy filled eyes of her friend, she knew that she couldn't tell him that it might not work. That he would live a life of pain and live with it forever as those around him die… a human life would be so short to him…
"Of course I can help you! I will try so hard for as long as I can!" she plainly said.
Draco smiled wider. "Oh, thank you Hermione!" he kissed her quickly on her cheek. "Thank you! It has been torture in here. I'm so lonely and that evil possessing thing in my body is so hard to fight so I can't escape!"
"I will not leave you here, don't worry. We will be able to see each other again properly and… and… oh we will have the best time together I swear, I will never take our friendship for granted. You should've seen me when I thought you were dead!"
"I heard you… I hear you all the time when you are in pain. That's why I am tortured in here…"
Hermione looked at the boy, "Oh, I will get you out! Don't worry!"
"I know you will."
*~*~*~*~*~*
"I think she's asleep Harry. Lucky… we have to sit up and watch her sleep while we are bloody knackered!" Ron complained bitterly. "Wish I was being threatened by a raging vampire…"
Harry stood up and walked over to the sofa, pulling out his invisibility cloak. "Not for much longer. I'm ending this now!"
"Harry… what are you doing?"
"I'm going to the store cupboard in the Defence Against the Dark Arts room. I will find the little bastard and end this now. I will not stand by and let him torture her like this!" Harry was enraged. Trying to stop him now would be like trying to stop the tide.
"I'll come too!"
"No, you need to stay here and guard her. Just in case there are more of them somewhere or if he comes here."
"Harry, wait till morning! They can't attack you in the day light!"
"I will not wait or take the cowards way out. I will destroy this creature now…"
(So? Any better at all? The humour is back! YAY! So, things explained in this chapter that I only came up with today, wohoo! Me= genius! Remember to review and tell me what you all thought, I am rushing it more than originally planned so I can have a calm before the storm sort of thing later. Still, I'm enjoying this. I'm reading 'Interview with the vampire' at the minute so I'm getting ideas! Bad thing in most cases really but, we'll see! Byes for now peepz!)
